Jennifer K. Morita transports readers to the beautiful islands of Hawai'i in Ghosts of Waikīkī , a well-plotted murder mystery featuring a reporter who must work with her ex-boyfriend cop to catch a killer.
Raised in Hawai'i, Maya Wong left the islands for graduate school in California and never looked back. But after the newspaper she writes for folds, she's in need of a new job and in no position to turn down an offer to ghostwrite the biography of Parker Hamilton, one of the biggest--and most controversial--real estate developers in Hawai'i. When Parker's wealthy father, Charles, is found dead during Maya's first interview with the family, Maya worries what she's gotten herself into. "How does a man who swam fifty laps a day drown in his own pool?" she wonders--and so do the police, including Detective Koa Yamada, Maya's long-avoided ex. As Koa and his partner investigate what appears to be the murder of the Hamilton patriarch, Maya is drawn further into the Hamiltons' scandals and further back into the life she once left an ocean behind.
"The scent of plumerias drifting on cool trade winds. Backyard parties and freshly picked mangoes. Portuguese doughnuts hot from Leonard's Bakery...." Morita skillfully evokes the Hawaiian setting, transporting readers to Waikīkī, with its white sand beaches and deep blue seas, long-lasting legacy of colonization and tricky relationship with tourism. As it melds the multifaceted context of an incredible place with a fast-paced whodunit, Ghosts of Waikīkī explores the many ways paradise is not always as perfect as it seems. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer